


Too old to die young & other lies we tell ourselves

by thereisnocowboyemoji



Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: Angst, Arthur’s death is not specified, Bittersweet?, Established Relationship, Kid Fic, Like, M/M, Ouch, also like, fr fr, i deeply apologize for this, its, obvi, they really loved each other tho, theyre always married in my fic, they’re married, where my charthur fans at
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:33:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26524528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thereisnocowboyemoji/pseuds/thereisnocowboyemoji
Summary: He knows that he’ll see Arthur again and that’s what keeps him going.
Relationships: Arthur Morgan/Charles Smith
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	Too old to die young & other lies we tell ourselves

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn’t going to post this bc I really just wrote it as a bit of therapy so it kind of feels like jumbled ramblings to me but then I was like eh what else am i gonna do with it. I hope you enjoy and let me know if y’all see any glaring mistakes :,)

Charles finds himself angry a lot, these days. 

He tries not to be, he has responsibilities he has to tend to. He has a pretty decent job that he worked hard for, he still has three kids to look after. But there’s always a nagging voice in the back of his throat, a ‘what’s the point’ and he finds himself unable to answer the question.

He’s angry and hurt, and most days he just doesn’t know what to do with himself. 

Sometimes he won’t sleep for days, working himself to the point of exhaustion because how is he expected to sleep without Arthur beside him? Hell, how is he expected to do anything he used to without Arthur by his side, telling his dumb jokes and chewing his particular brand of strawberry gum. The same gum he’d been chewing since his and Charles’ first kid was brought into this world. God, it seemed like they had the whole world ahead of them, then. 

Mostly, the kids help. Being able to see them everyday, to help them get ready for school and pack their lunches, it brings a sense of purpose to Charles. When the kids come home, he tries his best to help them with their homework, even if Arthur was always the one that helped with math and Charles always helped with history. He has to take over both subjects now, though, and lord knows he’s shed a few frustrated tears over a fucking Pre-Calc worksheet. 

It’s more than the math, though. It’s the nagging, persistent thought that Arthur should still be here, he should be the one helping them type the numbers into the calculator, he should be the one ruffling their son’s hair when he gets a question right. Arthur should be reading to their baby girl every night, with his horrible and overacted voices that she always loved, laughing so loud and joyful that Charles could hear it from the kitchen where he was cleaning dishes. 

But Arthur isn’t here to do these things anymore and it fucking hurts. 

Once, Charles had woken up in their bed, his arm outstretched to Arthur’s side and his arm was numb, like it always used to be when they woke up because Arthur had been sleeping on it all night, curled up at his husband’s side. Charles cried, that morning. He cried most every morning, but that morning he held Arthur’s pillow and sobbed, asking why he had to leave him, if there was anything he could’ve done to make him stay. Charles, through his tears and his sore throat, had said that they made a promise when they got married and when they had kids, that they were always going to be there for each other, to help and love and protect each other. Charles didn’t care what was going on in the rest of the world, and when he had really bad days he knew he’d be coming home to his kids and the love of his life and everything would be okay. 

Charles can see pieces of Arthur in their kids. When their oldest laughs, he tilts his head back the way Arthur used to. He scratches his chin in thought, hums, and it’s so Arthur that it almost hurts to look at him. Their daughter is a firecracker, full of spirit and a general need to help people. Last week she came home and told Charles how she helped a girl get to the nurse because she’d fallen off the swing set and broken her leg. The pride Charles had felt was near tangible and he knew wherever Arthur was, wherever he was watching down on them from, he was feeling the same pride. 

Their middle kid draws like Arthur. It was one thing he had picked up quicker than anybody could blink, drawing portraits and landscapes in the margins of his biology homework, on the back of his history exam. Arthur’s face had lit up, one day, when he walked into the boy’s room and saw a sketch of a certain someone on his son’s desk. 

“Ooh, and who is this?” He teased, his son blushing and Arthur laughed, ruffling his hair. “It’s good, son. I’ll tell you a secret; boys love when you draw pictures of them. How do you think I got your father to go on a date with me?” 

“What?” Their son had asked, something like relief in his voice though he tried to hide it with apprehension. “He didn’t think it was...I dunno, weird?” 

“Nah, kid. He blushed. I’d known your father for 3 years and I’d never seen him blush before that, at all. It’s the attention to detail, shows you’re paying attention to them. I think, in a way, it makes them feel special. Least, that’s what he told me and I don’t peg your father as the lyin’ sort.” 

Arthur smiled then, patting his son on the shoulder. “Now, c’mon, he’s fixing dinner, let’s go see if he needs any help.” 

Some days are easier than others. Some days he can almost function like a normal human. He can go to work and he can pick the kids up from school. He fixes dinner while they do their homework at the kitchen table. He stills feels the absence of his husband, still feels like there should be another voice in the house, booming and goofy while they all do their tasks. (Because he should, Arthur should’ve been by his side until they were 90 and geriatric.) But he doesn’t cry. He sits with the kids while the chicken is frying and he answers any questions they might have. He listens to his daughter talk about her classes and how she things her English teacher is dumb. Charles tells her it’s not nice to call people dumb. 

Other days, though, are near impossible to get through. The grief is in the air like a cloud and Charles can’t even look at the magnets they have on their refrigerator without tearing up. It’s all silly notes and magnets from places they’ve been, some that are even older than their kids, and some are just funny doodles that Arthur and their kids drew, some are grocery lists. Those days, it’s like they all feel it. They all know Charles is on edge and they don’t treat him like he’s made of glass, per se, but they are careful around him. They all have their own way of showing that they’re still with him, that they’re still here and Charles is always so grateful for them, so proud that he and Arthur were able to raise such amazing kids. 

Charles will never regret the time he got to spend with Arthur, no matter what they were doing. They’d known each other a long time, had devoted their entire lives to one another. They didn’t always have to talk to communicate and sometimes when they talked it was about nothing at all. There were days they’d talk about the future, about specific plans they had and Arthur would be brushing Charles’ hair, braiding it with soft and gentle fingers before they went to bed. Sometimes, Arthur would talk about a silly song he‘d heard on the radio while he was heading to work. The song would be stuck in his head for days and he’d hum it while he went about his chores and soon enough, it would be stuck in Charles’ head. Arthur always got a good kick out of when Charles would start humming the song, too. They’d sit on their front porch, some nights after the kids were in bed. Arthur would have his journal in his lap, sometimes he would sketch and sometimes it would just be there in case he wanted something to do with his hands. Charles sat beside him, a cup of coffee on the arm of his chair and they would just talk. They’d talk so long, some nights, that they’d see the sun rise and they would laugh at each other, tease “Remember when we used to stay up all night doing other things? Man, getting old sucks”. Charles misses those nights the most, when he just got to be with his husband. Not doing anything in particular, just spending time with him was always enough. 

Arthur took a big piece of Charles with him, when he died. He feels it in his chest, most days, when he sees something that reminds him of Arthur, when he turns to say something to his husband and his husband isn’t there. It’s a big gaping hole in his very being, and Charles knows he’s lucky that he ever found a love like that, that hurts this bad. He knows, further down the line, he’ll see Arthur again. That they’ll be reunited and Charles can have his husband back. 

Until then, though, he has three kids to look after and Arthur would never forgive him if he stopped.

**Author's Note:**

> yowza, huh?


End file.
